Given the increasing pressures and new challenges facing VET providers, innovative ways are needed to improve organisational performance. One way is described below, by a leader of an award-winning RTO, Neil Black, Director of TAFE NSW North Coast Institute, in an interview I conducted recently:

What strategies have helped the Institute become high-performing?

We have had a very deliberate strategy that goes back a number of years, to position ourselves to be the high performing organisation we are today. One of the things we did in 2000 was to develop a strategic plan, using a scenario planning process that identified what were the key environmental factors impacting on the institute. Of course those factors included the national training system and the changing expectations of industry and business, the impact of changing technology and the ageing workforce. From that we devised our strategic goals and our priorities.

Then we asked: Are we equipped to achieve those goals? So we undertook a process – the capability platform – which is based on the concept that there are key elements to an organisation’s capability platform, that is the culture, the structure and systems, the experience and competencies of the workforce, but most of all the organisation’s people. When we looked at the capability platform we identified that we had tremendously strong people: people who were highly committed, creative, experienced, technically strong and well qualified. But the other areas of the capability platform were potentially inhibiting us from being a high-performing organisation.

How did you address these gaps?

We put in place an organisational improvement strategy that was based around changing our structure and putting the right people in the right positions, particularly middle-management, because no organisation can be high-performing if it doesn’t have the right people in the right positions. Then we determined what sort of culture we wanted and worked on developing that culture, but that is an ongoing process, which has to be supported by resources. We reviewed our systems as well, and through working with the staff we looked at whether there were inhibitors to them doing their jobs more effectively and efficiently: whether there were bureaucratic barriers or too much paperwork. We put a lot of effort into building our online capability. We doubled our staff development funding and put in place a $250,000 research and development fund, to support the sorts of changes we needed to make.

What are the critical success factors for organisational improvement?

There must be a context for organisational development and improvement and that context is your strategic plan. But the strategic plan must be developed and owned by your staff and your stakeholders, otherwise that context is not very effective. Organisational improvement needs to be strategic, in that you need to determine what you want to change and improve and then the various initiatives need to support where everyone knows you are going. I’ve seen examples of where people put in place ad hoc strategies, like projects for morale boosting, without any framework for it. Another thing I have learnt is the value of involving the key unions upfront and throughout the change process. I’ve found that if the unions are part of the process and know where you want to go, they will provide excellent support. You must also be prepared to resource the change process, so that staff  know you are serious about change.

Is there one key to high-performance?

The key to a high-performing organisation is its people and its culture. There is absolutely no question of that, in my opinion. Getting the right people on the bus and in the right seats on the bus has to be the first organisational improvement strategy because you can waste a lot of time and effort if you have a lot of blockages in your organisation. At middle level management level, blockages can be totally destructive. So you’ve got to have all the people, particularly your leadership and development people, all committed and enthusiastic about this sort of culture you’re trying to cultivate and the direction you’re trying to head in. Then it’s a lot easier to support organisational improvement because everyone’s rowing in the same direction.

The full interview is provided in my ‘Inside VET’ column in Campus Review, October 2005.